Disclaimer: Done at last! To reiterate: this work is not for children. It contains disturbing
imagery, violence, sexual content and adult language. Marvel Comics, DC Comics and
Dimension Films own and control the rights to most of the characters herein - full notes and
acknowledgements can be found after the conclusion. If you wish to read the previous chapters,
they can be found at the Fonts of Wisdom, the Itty Bitty Archives or at fanfiction.net.
Correspondence: XanderDG@hotmail.com
______________________________________________
H E L L R A I S E R : H E L L F I R E
by
XanderDig
______________________________________________
5
We parked two blocks east, two blocks south of my building, and I paid the driver with the last
of the money I shoved into my pocket at the outset of my journey. All that was left was some
small change, a few Thai notes and twenty-four quid. I might be able to get a cup of coffee.
I flipped up the lapels of my pilot's jacket, pulling it close to my neck. The infection was
worsening - I was hot and cold, hot and cold. When I walked under a flickering streetlight, it
stupidly occurred to me that a stranger might take me for an actor doing a poor impression of
Harry Lime. I walked around the corner and crossed fifth, making my way north as
inconspicuously as possible.
It seemed all was clear at first, then I saw the sedan. It was a club vehicle, all right, the same
from the airport. I stepped back into a shadow and waited - perhaps they would only search my
apartment and leave. Then I saw the light.
My apartment was high in the building, a decision I'd made more for reasons of status than for
personal taste. It was hard to see from the ground. When the familiar blue light began to pour
from my picture window, though, my eyes widened. Could it be that the Gashes had followed
me home?
For a moment my heart was lightened by the thought that the Rook had run into them before I
realized the implication. What if Buckman had summoned the creatures? What if they were in
league together? Was I nothing more than a rat being run through its paces? I turned away
from my home, glowing up above in the night sky, and wandered away.
I finally found a payphone at the corner of Park. I picked it up and called the office - with me
gone, Elspeth would be there late. Though I would never admit it, my officious assistant ran
many aspects of my budding empire.
The phone rang once when it was picked up, and I licked my dry lips to begin talking. Then the
receiver clicked in my ear. It clicked again, and there was silence.
"Elspeth?" I asked.
"Mr. Shaw," said a mild, male voice. "Mr. Shaw, where are you?"
I dropped the phone like it was something hot and reeled away into the night.
***
There was no way to tell how long I stumbled through the freezing streets. Dozens, hundreds of
blocks. I was propositioned by whores of both, of every, gender. A thug tried to mug me off
Times Square, and I hurt him badly. A dealer tried to sell me something he promised would
make me forget my troubles, but I hadn't the fare. At last I found my way back to 54, back to
where it all began so long ago, so recently. But there was nothing there.
The line of people that traversed the block every evening was gone, and when I came around to
the front of the building, there were no opulent cars with beautiful drivers. Only the velvet rope
remained. I stepped over it and walked to the door.
A large padlock forbiddingly blocked the entrance. There was a notice on the door, and I didn't
have to read the fine print to know what the whole tale of woe was. The three letters at the top
of the paper were enough for that. No treatise of Luther this: "IRS" screamed the print.
Closing my eyes, I clutched my wounded hand to my chest - it felt as swollen as a baseball under
the filthy paper towels - and leaned back against the door. I needed a doctor, I needed a coat to
block the cold. I needed. I needed.
When I opened my eyes, they found the automat up at the corner. I jangled the change in my
pocket and laughed at my fall from grace. If my last meal was destined to be a cold sandwich in
some retro diner, so be it.
The only customer was an ancient man who barely looked up from his beef stew when I opened
the door. He sat at the linoleum table eating like a man possessed. Holding his plastic spoon as
a shovel, he ate with purpose. If he cared about the brown juice from his meal spattering the
gray stubble around his lips, he did nothing to show it.
I walked past him down the narrow row between the tables. The lights buzzed plaintively, and
as I approached the series of coin operated doors with pies and fries and the like behind, I
wondered the same thing I had as a boy: who waited behind the wall? Whose lot in life was it to
spend their nights filling the empty slots of an automated luncheonette?
For a moment I only stared at the selection. Apple pie? Or cobbler? Definitely something
sweet. I went to the very last slot in the corner and dropped in most of my change for a cherry
strudel. When the door knocked closed behind me, I was startled. I turned to find my dinner
companion absent - all that remained at his seat were brown stains.
Reaching into my pocket to count out how much I had left, I found a small slip of paper. I
pulled it out - the waters of the Luk Luang had made the ink run, but the note was still legible.
"Temper temper," it said on one side. It had a phone number on the other. I was a man without
a country, a sick one at that. It seemed somehow fitting that the only soul I could call would be
a hooker and a thief. Meeting Emma seemed a million years ago - hopefully it was less for her.
There was a phone by the automat's door and I went to it.
My knees weakened as I moved back down the narrow aisle, and for a moment the whole place
seemed to shift on its axis. My vision blurred and I reeled to lean heavily on the edge of a table.
Taking a gulp of air didn't help, so I wheeled into the laminated plastic booth and put my head in
my hands for a moment. I pressed my palms against my closed eyes and saw intricate fractal
patterns of red explosions and glittering stars. Sleep began to take me that quickly, or a loss of
consciousness deeper than sleep. I couldn't pass out now.
I removed my hands, momentarily blind from the pressure and the light. Stretching my arms
above me, I arched my eyebrows and brought my hands down to rub my stubbled cheeks
vigorously. Even that benign action sent a nauseating wave of pain crawling up from my
wounded hand. I didn't look at it when my vision cleared. Instead, I stared vacantly at the empty
saucer that had been holding the old man's beef stew.
Oily stains surrounded the plastic bowl in an almost symmetrical pattern. The old dodger might
have been the Jackson Pollack of Dinty Moore, creating complex designs from the lukewarm
broth of canned stew. Despite my light-headed hunger, a lump of bile rose in my throat when I
looked into the greasy sediment lining the bottom of the dish. Something squirmed in the goo,
probably larvae from the moths listlessly circling the buzzing lights.
My hand unconsciously covered my mouth for a moment as the maggot consumed its dinner.
My hand throbbed and I told myself it was only the infection - there was nothing alive inside.
Slowly, carefully, I rose from the booth and picked my way across the room to the payphone.
When it didn't ring at me after nearly a minute of staring, I picked up the receiver. Nothing but
dial tone reached my ear, and there was a kind of triumph in that. I dropped in a dime and dialed
the numbers on the slip of paper. On the third ring I was convinced that the woman had left me
nothing but an empty safe. I was about to hang up when the phone was answered
Nobody said anything, and for a moment I felt a peculiar itch in the back of my head. I frowned
and opened my mouth to speak when the woman finally spoke.
"Hello, Sebastian," said Emma. How could she have known? "You're not still upset about the
safe, are you? A girl's got to make a living." Her throaty English accent bore traces of trained
seduction. Even with her prodigious talents in that regard, I suspected that Emma would find me
a poor mark for her game this evening. Before I could even answer her, though, she chimed in
again.
"Good God, man, what's the matter with you?" she asked. She just *knew*. Without a word
from my mouth, she knew. I realized what she was in that very instant. It was more than the sex
that drew me to her. We were alike.
"I've been hurt, Emma," I answered. "Badly, and I haven't slept in days. I need a place to lie
low." She didn't answer immediately, and I listened to the faint sound of her breathing down the
line. Somehow it seemed that she was much closer than a normal soul on the end of a phone
conversation.
"We're alike," she said, echoing. "Alike."
"We are. You can feel it, too." The itch in my skull grew to a buzz and I thought I might pass
out. I closed my eyes, leaning against the wall. The dark behind my eyelids coalesced. I was
already in her apartment, it seemed. It was a small flat that smelled strongly of tea and
honeysuckle, of sex and vodka and moonlight. There was a sprung couch, probably bought
second hand, with an embroidered pattern on it that I couldn't make out in the dark
Emma stood nude with the phone at her ear, warm air from the heat register blowing up between
her legs. If she was aware of the sexuality in her pose, she did not show it. She clenched her
jaw once. Then she rested the phone in the crook of her shoulder and pushed her long hair up on
top of her head. Blonde stubble stood out under her arms, catching the pale light streaming
through the window. I could have loved her forever. She finally let her hair drop and held the
phone in her hand again, coming to a decision ... then it was all gone.
"I'm sorry," she answered. All I could smell here was the rancid beef stew. "Like or not, I can't
get involved. I think you're in deep water, love. I think you've drowned." When I opened my
eyes, the yellow luncheonette was heartbreaking.
"Emma, please ..."
"Sorry. I am. You seem like a good enough man. Or bad enough, anyway," she chuckled, still
seducing even in rejection. "You ever come up for air you should come back and see me
without your little friend - we might be a match. For now, you're too far gone."
"Emma, I need ..."
"I know, Sebastian. We all do." She hung up the phone, the click of disconnection carrying a
tone of finality along with it. It took me a moment to realize that the weak, buzzing noise in my
ears was not the dial tone. It was a plaintive whine coming from my own throat.
I stilled myself and stood quietly for a moment. Throughout my life, I had always been the
victor. I had always come out on top of whatever situation I walked into. I certainly never gave
up. Yet here I was, in an automated luncheonette, infected, broke, alone, hurting. Defeated.
The night outside was cold, though my fever would lie to me about it if I went into the night. I
turned away from the window to look back at the rows of small windows, lonely meals protected
behind the glass. I might be a loser at the game of life, but I wouldn't go out hungry. I had never
gotten my strudel.
So weak that the aisle seemed to stretch out forever, I couldn't be sure how long it took to make
it fifteen feet across the room. When I finally arrived, I leaned my forehead against the cool
glass for a moment. When I pulled away, a greasy mark marred the window. I laughed at my
autograph and moved to my treat. I pressed the button to open the small compartment and
nothing happened.
Typical. On the very edge of death and pursued by the minions of the White King of the Hellfire
Club, and I couldn't even get a sweet. I pressed the button again, again but nothing came. I sank
to one knee and looked at the strudel behind the glass. It was still there, but behind it, in the
back room I caught movement.
"Do not look at the man behind the curtain," I muttered. At least someone was here to complain
to if my change really had been taken. I pressed the button a final time, gave up, and toggled the
coin return. Predictably, nothing came out, so I stood up and backed away.
Looking at all of the glass doors in mosaic, there clearly was a person toiling behind them. I
knitted my eyebrows trying to focus on the illusory shape, but the figure was murky and distorted
behind the wall of small doors.
"Hello?" I asked, then I shouted: "Hello!" The figure continued his machinations.
"Excuse me! The machine took my money! It won't open!" My dry voice cracked like a
pubescent boy's. I was so tired. The buzzing lights flickered momentarily.
"Sir!" I shouted as reasonably as I could. "I would like to have my change . . ." And a door
popped open. I looked at it - it was not the door my strudel hid behind. It was in the opposite
corner. The lights flickered again, momentarily going dark. The light from behind the wall
streamed out and for that second the figure was almost clear. I knew what must be in the recess
of the open automat door, of course. When the lights returned, I went to it anyway.
Leaning on the counter, I reached down into the darkened space. Somehow, this cubby was
further recessed than the other doors. I leaned in, my forearm disappearing into the hole, then
my upper arm. When I was nearly to my shoulder, I brushed it with my fingertip: smooth metal
set into cool wood. Gritting my teeth, I pushed in further, capturing.
I slowly pulled it out into the strobing, buzzing light. LeMarchand's Box. The Lament
Configuration. At any earlier point, I might have run in a panic. Now, though, only rage
encircled my heart. Shaking with unchanneled violence, I bolted to my feet, stepping back to
take in the wall. As the lights popped off and on, I could see the figure standing behind the
glass.
It was the faceless man.
"I've got it now!" I screamed at him. "You have your way! I've got it! Now come out and face
me! And bring your master!"
The shape only stood silently. The lights out front finally gave up, and I was plunged into
darkness. The only light came from the other side of the translucent divide. Behind the glass,
all of the food squirmed with inner life. The pies and sandwiches undulated from within, but I
still wasn't frightened away.
"Tell Buckman I opened it! Tell him I know its secrets!" The figure turned and began to walk
slowly away into the bowels of the automat. I found that I was more afraid of being alone than I
was of this faceless stranger. I shouted again as he disappeared. "Tell him I'll bring the game
down around his blasted ears before I'm through!"
"Are you all right, sir?" The light behind the wall went out at the same moment that my side was
illuminated again. My yelling weakened me and I had to lean against a table to turn around.
The beat cop was my age and well scrubbed. "You okay, pop?" he asked.
"I ... I'm fine," I said. I looked down and saw that the box was only a strudel. The world
pinwheeled violently. "I'm a-okay, officer."
I found the energy to smile at him before the world fell away and I toppled to the floor.
***
"Emma said not to bring you," I whispered. Donald Pierce looked over at me and grinned.
"Jesus, Shaw," he said jovially. "You're back in the land of the living. Who the devil is Emma?"
I was leaning back in the seat of Pierce's Porsche, the lights of the city whizzing by at a
sickening pace. As was his custom, he hit the horn every few seconds as he darted past slow
moving race car drivers. Though he was a supremely confident driver addicted to speed, Pierce
had virtually no skill at all. To drive with him was to paint the edge of death.
"Just a woman. What's happening, Donald? Where am I?"
"It's a good thing you had that cop call me. You didn't have any ID on you, Sebastian. He was
ready to call an ambulance to take you to Bellevue." He shuddered.
"Where are we going?"
"Well, the White King wants you taken to the club." At the name I began to struggle in my seat.
I fumbled with the seatbelt until Pierce put a hand lightly on my shoulder, stilling me. He
grinned over at me. Though he thought of the look as that of a roguish knave, he merely
appeared silly. I wished he would keep his eyes on the road.
"Pierce?"
"But if the old poof wants you bad enough to call me and see if I've seen you, I figure I ought to
at least hear the story before I send you off to the chopping block. Did you figure out how to
access the Club's accounts?" he asked enthusiastically. A semi blasted its air horn as we drifted
into its lane. Pierce honked back, momentarily shifting his attention back to the highway.
"No."
"Well you *must* tell me the tale. You look like shit, Shaw. I've half a mind to take you to the
hospital myself." I had no doubt that if he'd seen my hand we would do just that. I was holding
it under my jacket, the Napoleon of Park Avenue. It was hot and wet against my shirt.
"No, Donald. Not the hospital. Let's head back to your place. We'll have a drink and I'll tell you
everything." Perhaps not everything, but enough for him to give me the help I needed to finish
things.
"Twist my arm," he said. "I could use a drink. Another drink." He floored the accelerator and
we streaked along. I shifted myself to stare out the window, the city lights along the Hudson
hypnotically driving me back to sleep. My eyes were heavy and I was almost gone when Pierce
spoke again.
"Oh, I nearly forgot: what's this?" I turned around to find him holding the Lament out toward me
as though it was nothing with any more gravity than a pack of cigarettes. I stared at the puzzle
box like a diseased rat. "The policeman said he had to pry it out of your hand. He couldn't open
it. I guessed you had your stash hidden in it," he laughed.
"My stash," I said. "No."
***
Donald Pierce was no poker player. Despite his utter lack of guile I could not read his face in
the slightest. We sat across from each other in his living room. Pierce had recently taken to the
minimalist fad, so his entire Tribeca loft was bathed in white. He sat on a backless white couch,
I on a small white stool. Between us lay a white coffee table sculpted to vaguely resemble
feminine curves.
On the table sat LeMarchand's Box. Donald leaned forward, elbows on gangly knees, and
frowned at the object. It was impossible to tell whether he was deep in contemplation of the
impossible story I told him, or if he were only attempting to give the contemplative look he had
seen actors portray in the movies. Either way he was silent for some time.
We both held snifters of aged, strong Cognac. I went through three of them as I told my story,
the chill I'd taken as we walked into Pierce's building slow to stop shaking me to the core. He
had not touched his until he saw the wound. He asked to see my hand when I got to that point in
the fable and blanched at the sight of it. It had swollen black as pitch and as large as a ripened
grapefruit, thick lines of infection leaching around to my palm and as far back as the middle of
my forearm. It gave off a sweet, milky smell and I knew that if it didn't receive treatment soon, I
might well lose it.
Pierce sucked down the hundred-year-old brandy in a gulp and looked relieved when I shoved
the injury back under my jacket. Truth be told, I was as well. Out of sight, out of mind.
Now, the tale completed, he simply stared at the box. I looked at him through bleary eyes,
wondering if I made a mistake in telling the feckless gull. He was in the Club, after all. Even a
creature as dense as Pierce might be acquisitive enough to take Buckman up on whatever price
he put on my head. In my gut, though, I felt my blond friend might be loyal as a terrier. He
might be nothing at all like me.
"Hm," he said at last. "Hm."
"What does that mean, Donald?" I whispered.
"This might just be suggestion, you know. You spend so much time reading all that magic
mumbo-jumbo in the library you could have forgotten that we're just in a social club. Buckman
sends you after his object d'art, some nut in England tells you it's cursed ..."
"Come on, man. How do you explain the Gashes? How do you explain *this*?" I held up my
wounded hand and Pierce turned his head.
"You got cut in England. You caught some kind of bug. You said yourself that you were high
when you saw these demon things." He looked back at me, meeting my heavy eyes. "Maybe
you're just fucked up, Sebastian. I think we should get you to a hospital."
"No," I said. "No hospital. Buckman will be having all of them watched."
"You're talking like a paranoid, Shaw. There are no such things as devils. Not that the White
King can control, anyway. Not that aren't just people like you and me." He reached down and
picked up the Lament. "Not that come from fucking toys."
"But ... the faceless man. He ..."
"He doesn't even make any sense in your own story, Shaw! You saw him *before* you ever
heard of the box! What? Is he some kind of premonition?" Pierce stood, pacing in frustration.
"Or maybe you're in a waking nightmare that keeps repeating itself. Maybe you're trapped in an
endless cycle."
Instead of responding to his patronizing sarcasm, I only coughed. I was too tired to fight. He
shook his head at me.
"Wake up, Sebastian. This is the real world. If we don't get you to a doctor, you'll die."
Telling the story had taken the last of my strength. I wanted Pierce to hit me, to give me the
energy I needed to come back to life. He only looked at me sadly, a boy first realizing that his
heroic father is only a man. I had always been the leader of our little cadre; if I survived this,
Pierce might well assume the role.
"I said no hospitals." I picked up the crystal Cognac decanter and pulled the top out with my
teeth. Then I held out my injured hand, well beyond rational thought.
"What the hell are you doing, Shaw?" Asked Pierce. Then, absurdly: "You know that's a
deMontal 1874, don't you?"
"Good year," I said. I upended the bottle. Strong liquor poured over my injured hand and the
terrific explosion of pain brought a white-hot clarity with it. I could see the fine cracks on the
coffee table, the pores on Pierce's face, the fabric of the white carpet slowly being infused with
brown liquor.
I tried to say "hooch." Instead I only screamed.
imagery, violence, sexual content and adult language. Marvel Comics, DC Comics and
Dimension Films own and control the rights to most of the characters herein - full notes and
acknowledgements can be found after the conclusion. If you wish to read the previous chapters,
they can be found at the Fonts of Wisdom, the Itty Bitty Archives or at fanfiction.net.
Correspondence: XanderDG@hotmail.com
______________________________________________
H E L L R A I S E R : H E L L F I R E
by
XanderDig
______________________________________________
5
We parked two blocks east, two blocks south of my building, and I paid the driver with the last
of the money I shoved into my pocket at the outset of my journey. All that was left was some
small change, a few Thai notes and twenty-four quid. I might be able to get a cup of coffee.
I flipped up the lapels of my pilot's jacket, pulling it close to my neck. The infection was
worsening - I was hot and cold, hot and cold. When I walked under a flickering streetlight, it
stupidly occurred to me that a stranger might take me for an actor doing a poor impression of
Harry Lime. I walked around the corner and crossed fifth, making my way north as
inconspicuously as possible.
It seemed all was clear at first, then I saw the sedan. It was a club vehicle, all right, the same
from the airport. I stepped back into a shadow and waited - perhaps they would only search my
apartment and leave. Then I saw the light.
My apartment was high in the building, a decision I'd made more for reasons of status than for
personal taste. It was hard to see from the ground. When the familiar blue light began to pour
from my picture window, though, my eyes widened. Could it be that the Gashes had followed
me home?
For a moment my heart was lightened by the thought that the Rook had run into them before I
realized the implication. What if Buckman had summoned the creatures? What if they were in
league together? Was I nothing more than a rat being run through its paces? I turned away
from my home, glowing up above in the night sky, and wandered away.
I finally found a payphone at the corner of Park. I picked it up and called the office - with me
gone, Elspeth would be there late. Though I would never admit it, my officious assistant ran
many aspects of my budding empire.
The phone rang once when it was picked up, and I licked my dry lips to begin talking. Then the
receiver clicked in my ear. It clicked again, and there was silence.
"Elspeth?" I asked.
"Mr. Shaw," said a mild, male voice. "Mr. Shaw, where are you?"
I dropped the phone like it was something hot and reeled away into the night.
***
There was no way to tell how long I stumbled through the freezing streets. Dozens, hundreds of
blocks. I was propositioned by whores of both, of every, gender. A thug tried to mug me off
Times Square, and I hurt him badly. A dealer tried to sell me something he promised would
make me forget my troubles, but I hadn't the fare. At last I found my way back to 54, back to
where it all began so long ago, so recently. But there was nothing there.
The line of people that traversed the block every evening was gone, and when I came around to
the front of the building, there were no opulent cars with beautiful drivers. Only the velvet rope
remained. I stepped over it and walked to the door.
A large padlock forbiddingly blocked the entrance. There was a notice on the door, and I didn't
have to read the fine print to know what the whole tale of woe was. The three letters at the top
of the paper were enough for that. No treatise of Luther this: "IRS" screamed the print.
Closing my eyes, I clutched my wounded hand to my chest - it felt as swollen as a baseball under
the filthy paper towels - and leaned back against the door. I needed a doctor, I needed a coat to
block the cold. I needed. I needed.
When I opened my eyes, they found the automat up at the corner. I jangled the change in my
pocket and laughed at my fall from grace. If my last meal was destined to be a cold sandwich in
some retro diner, so be it.
The only customer was an ancient man who barely looked up from his beef stew when I opened
the door. He sat at the linoleum table eating like a man possessed. Holding his plastic spoon as
a shovel, he ate with purpose. If he cared about the brown juice from his meal spattering the
gray stubble around his lips, he did nothing to show it.
I walked past him down the narrow row between the tables. The lights buzzed plaintively, and
as I approached the series of coin operated doors with pies and fries and the like behind, I
wondered the same thing I had as a boy: who waited behind the wall? Whose lot in life was it to
spend their nights filling the empty slots of an automated luncheonette?
For a moment I only stared at the selection. Apple pie? Or cobbler? Definitely something
sweet. I went to the very last slot in the corner and dropped in most of my change for a cherry
strudel. When the door knocked closed behind me, I was startled. I turned to find my dinner
companion absent - all that remained at his seat were brown stains.
Reaching into my pocket to count out how much I had left, I found a small slip of paper. I
pulled it out - the waters of the Luk Luang had made the ink run, but the note was still legible.
"Temper temper," it said on one side. It had a phone number on the other. I was a man without
a country, a sick one at that. It seemed somehow fitting that the only soul I could call would be
a hooker and a thief. Meeting Emma seemed a million years ago - hopefully it was less for her.
There was a phone by the automat's door and I went to it.
My knees weakened as I moved back down the narrow aisle, and for a moment the whole place
seemed to shift on its axis. My vision blurred and I reeled to lean heavily on the edge of a table.
Taking a gulp of air didn't help, so I wheeled into the laminated plastic booth and put my head in
my hands for a moment. I pressed my palms against my closed eyes and saw intricate fractal
patterns of red explosions and glittering stars. Sleep began to take me that quickly, or a loss of
consciousness deeper than sleep. I couldn't pass out now.
I removed my hands, momentarily blind from the pressure and the light. Stretching my arms
above me, I arched my eyebrows and brought my hands down to rub my stubbled cheeks
vigorously. Even that benign action sent a nauseating wave of pain crawling up from my
wounded hand. I didn't look at it when my vision cleared. Instead, I stared vacantly at the empty
saucer that had been holding the old man's beef stew.
Oily stains surrounded the plastic bowl in an almost symmetrical pattern. The old dodger might
have been the Jackson Pollack of Dinty Moore, creating complex designs from the lukewarm
broth of canned stew. Despite my light-headed hunger, a lump of bile rose in my throat when I
looked into the greasy sediment lining the bottom of the dish. Something squirmed in the goo,
probably larvae from the moths listlessly circling the buzzing lights.
My hand unconsciously covered my mouth for a moment as the maggot consumed its dinner.
My hand throbbed and I told myself it was only the infection - there was nothing alive inside.
Slowly, carefully, I rose from the booth and picked my way across the room to the payphone.
When it didn't ring at me after nearly a minute of staring, I picked up the receiver. Nothing but
dial tone reached my ear, and there was a kind of triumph in that. I dropped in a dime and dialed
the numbers on the slip of paper. On the third ring I was convinced that the woman had left me
nothing but an empty safe. I was about to hang up when the phone was answered
Nobody said anything, and for a moment I felt a peculiar itch in the back of my head. I frowned
and opened my mouth to speak when the woman finally spoke.
"Hello, Sebastian," said Emma. How could she have known? "You're not still upset about the
safe, are you? A girl's got to make a living." Her throaty English accent bore traces of trained
seduction. Even with her prodigious talents in that regard, I suspected that Emma would find me
a poor mark for her game this evening. Before I could even answer her, though, she chimed in
again.
"Good God, man, what's the matter with you?" she asked. She just *knew*. Without a word
from my mouth, she knew. I realized what she was in that very instant. It was more than the sex
that drew me to her. We were alike.
"I've been hurt, Emma," I answered. "Badly, and I haven't slept in days. I need a place to lie
low." She didn't answer immediately, and I listened to the faint sound of her breathing down the
line. Somehow it seemed that she was much closer than a normal soul on the end of a phone
conversation.
"We're alike," she said, echoing. "Alike."
"We are. You can feel it, too." The itch in my skull grew to a buzz and I thought I might pass
out. I closed my eyes, leaning against the wall. The dark behind my eyelids coalesced. I was
already in her apartment, it seemed. It was a small flat that smelled strongly of tea and
honeysuckle, of sex and vodka and moonlight. There was a sprung couch, probably bought
second hand, with an embroidered pattern on it that I couldn't make out in the dark
Emma stood nude with the phone at her ear, warm air from the heat register blowing up between
her legs. If she was aware of the sexuality in her pose, she did not show it. She clenched her
jaw once. Then she rested the phone in the crook of her shoulder and pushed her long hair up on
top of her head. Blonde stubble stood out under her arms, catching the pale light streaming
through the window. I could have loved her forever. She finally let her hair drop and held the
phone in her hand again, coming to a decision ... then it was all gone.
"I'm sorry," she answered. All I could smell here was the rancid beef stew. "Like or not, I can't
get involved. I think you're in deep water, love. I think you've drowned." When I opened my
eyes, the yellow luncheonette was heartbreaking.
"Emma, please ..."
"Sorry. I am. You seem like a good enough man. Or bad enough, anyway," she chuckled, still
seducing even in rejection. "You ever come up for air you should come back and see me
without your little friend - we might be a match. For now, you're too far gone."
"Emma, I need ..."
"I know, Sebastian. We all do." She hung up the phone, the click of disconnection carrying a
tone of finality along with it. It took me a moment to realize that the weak, buzzing noise in my
ears was not the dial tone. It was a plaintive whine coming from my own throat.
I stilled myself and stood quietly for a moment. Throughout my life, I had always been the
victor. I had always come out on top of whatever situation I walked into. I certainly never gave
up. Yet here I was, in an automated luncheonette, infected, broke, alone, hurting. Defeated.
The night outside was cold, though my fever would lie to me about it if I went into the night. I
turned away from the window to look back at the rows of small windows, lonely meals protected
behind the glass. I might be a loser at the game of life, but I wouldn't go out hungry. I had never
gotten my strudel.
So weak that the aisle seemed to stretch out forever, I couldn't be sure how long it took to make
it fifteen feet across the room. When I finally arrived, I leaned my forehead against the cool
glass for a moment. When I pulled away, a greasy mark marred the window. I laughed at my
autograph and moved to my treat. I pressed the button to open the small compartment and
nothing happened.
Typical. On the very edge of death and pursued by the minions of the White King of the Hellfire
Club, and I couldn't even get a sweet. I pressed the button again, again but nothing came. I sank
to one knee and looked at the strudel behind the glass. It was still there, but behind it, in the
back room I caught movement.
"Do not look at the man behind the curtain," I muttered. At least someone was here to complain
to if my change really had been taken. I pressed the button a final time, gave up, and toggled the
coin return. Predictably, nothing came out, so I stood up and backed away.
Looking at all of the glass doors in mosaic, there clearly was a person toiling behind them. I
knitted my eyebrows trying to focus on the illusory shape, but the figure was murky and distorted
behind the wall of small doors.
"Hello?" I asked, then I shouted: "Hello!" The figure continued his machinations.
"Excuse me! The machine took my money! It won't open!" My dry voice cracked like a
pubescent boy's. I was so tired. The buzzing lights flickered momentarily.
"Sir!" I shouted as reasonably as I could. "I would like to have my change . . ." And a door
popped open. I looked at it - it was not the door my strudel hid behind. It was in the opposite
corner. The lights flickered again, momentarily going dark. The light from behind the wall
streamed out and for that second the figure was almost clear. I knew what must be in the recess
of the open automat door, of course. When the lights returned, I went to it anyway.
Leaning on the counter, I reached down into the darkened space. Somehow, this cubby was
further recessed than the other doors. I leaned in, my forearm disappearing into the hole, then
my upper arm. When I was nearly to my shoulder, I brushed it with my fingertip: smooth metal
set into cool wood. Gritting my teeth, I pushed in further, capturing.
I slowly pulled it out into the strobing, buzzing light. LeMarchand's Box. The Lament
Configuration. At any earlier point, I might have run in a panic. Now, though, only rage
encircled my heart. Shaking with unchanneled violence, I bolted to my feet, stepping back to
take in the wall. As the lights popped off and on, I could see the figure standing behind the
glass.
It was the faceless man.
"I've got it now!" I screamed at him. "You have your way! I've got it! Now come out and face
me! And bring your master!"
The shape only stood silently. The lights out front finally gave up, and I was plunged into
darkness. The only light came from the other side of the translucent divide. Behind the glass,
all of the food squirmed with inner life. The pies and sandwiches undulated from within, but I
still wasn't frightened away.
"Tell Buckman I opened it! Tell him I know its secrets!" The figure turned and began to walk
slowly away into the bowels of the automat. I found that I was more afraid of being alone than I
was of this faceless stranger. I shouted again as he disappeared. "Tell him I'll bring the game
down around his blasted ears before I'm through!"
"Are you all right, sir?" The light behind the wall went out at the same moment that my side was
illuminated again. My yelling weakened me and I had to lean against a table to turn around.
The beat cop was my age and well scrubbed. "You okay, pop?" he asked.
"I ... I'm fine," I said. I looked down and saw that the box was only a strudel. The world
pinwheeled violently. "I'm a-okay, officer."
I found the energy to smile at him before the world fell away and I toppled to the floor.
***
"Emma said not to bring you," I whispered. Donald Pierce looked over at me and grinned.
"Jesus, Shaw," he said jovially. "You're back in the land of the living. Who the devil is Emma?"
I was leaning back in the seat of Pierce's Porsche, the lights of the city whizzing by at a
sickening pace. As was his custom, he hit the horn every few seconds as he darted past slow
moving race car drivers. Though he was a supremely confident driver addicted to speed, Pierce
had virtually no skill at all. To drive with him was to paint the edge of death.
"Just a woman. What's happening, Donald? Where am I?"
"It's a good thing you had that cop call me. You didn't have any ID on you, Sebastian. He was
ready to call an ambulance to take you to Bellevue." He shuddered.
"Where are we going?"
"Well, the White King wants you taken to the club." At the name I began to struggle in my seat.
I fumbled with the seatbelt until Pierce put a hand lightly on my shoulder, stilling me. He
grinned over at me. Though he thought of the look as that of a roguish knave, he merely
appeared silly. I wished he would keep his eyes on the road.
"Pierce?"
"But if the old poof wants you bad enough to call me and see if I've seen you, I figure I ought to
at least hear the story before I send you off to the chopping block. Did you figure out how to
access the Club's accounts?" he asked enthusiastically. A semi blasted its air horn as we drifted
into its lane. Pierce honked back, momentarily shifting his attention back to the highway.
"No."
"Well you *must* tell me the tale. You look like shit, Shaw. I've half a mind to take you to the
hospital myself." I had no doubt that if he'd seen my hand we would do just that. I was holding
it under my jacket, the Napoleon of Park Avenue. It was hot and wet against my shirt.
"No, Donald. Not the hospital. Let's head back to your place. We'll have a drink and I'll tell you
everything." Perhaps not everything, but enough for him to give me the help I needed to finish
things.
"Twist my arm," he said. "I could use a drink. Another drink." He floored the accelerator and
we streaked along. I shifted myself to stare out the window, the city lights along the Hudson
hypnotically driving me back to sleep. My eyes were heavy and I was almost gone when Pierce
spoke again.
"Oh, I nearly forgot: what's this?" I turned around to find him holding the Lament out toward me
as though it was nothing with any more gravity than a pack of cigarettes. I stared at the puzzle
box like a diseased rat. "The policeman said he had to pry it out of your hand. He couldn't open
it. I guessed you had your stash hidden in it," he laughed.
"My stash," I said. "No."
***
Donald Pierce was no poker player. Despite his utter lack of guile I could not read his face in
the slightest. We sat across from each other in his living room. Pierce had recently taken to the
minimalist fad, so his entire Tribeca loft was bathed in white. He sat on a backless white couch,
I on a small white stool. Between us lay a white coffee table sculpted to vaguely resemble
feminine curves.
On the table sat LeMarchand's Box. Donald leaned forward, elbows on gangly knees, and
frowned at the object. It was impossible to tell whether he was deep in contemplation of the
impossible story I told him, or if he were only attempting to give the contemplative look he had
seen actors portray in the movies. Either way he was silent for some time.
We both held snifters of aged, strong Cognac. I went through three of them as I told my story,
the chill I'd taken as we walked into Pierce's building slow to stop shaking me to the core. He
had not touched his until he saw the wound. He asked to see my hand when I got to that point in
the fable and blanched at the sight of it. It had swollen black as pitch and as large as a ripened
grapefruit, thick lines of infection leaching around to my palm and as far back as the middle of
my forearm. It gave off a sweet, milky smell and I knew that if it didn't receive treatment soon, I
might well lose it.
Pierce sucked down the hundred-year-old brandy in a gulp and looked relieved when I shoved
the injury back under my jacket. Truth be told, I was as well. Out of sight, out of mind.
Now, the tale completed, he simply stared at the box. I looked at him through bleary eyes,
wondering if I made a mistake in telling the feckless gull. He was in the Club, after all. Even a
creature as dense as Pierce might be acquisitive enough to take Buckman up on whatever price
he put on my head. In my gut, though, I felt my blond friend might be loyal as a terrier. He
might be nothing at all like me.
"Hm," he said at last. "Hm."
"What does that mean, Donald?" I whispered.
"This might just be suggestion, you know. You spend so much time reading all that magic
mumbo-jumbo in the library you could have forgotten that we're just in a social club. Buckman
sends you after his object d'art, some nut in England tells you it's cursed ..."
"Come on, man. How do you explain the Gashes? How do you explain *this*?" I held up my
wounded hand and Pierce turned his head.
"You got cut in England. You caught some kind of bug. You said yourself that you were high
when you saw these demon things." He looked back at me, meeting my heavy eyes. "Maybe
you're just fucked up, Sebastian. I think we should get you to a hospital."
"No," I said. "No hospital. Buckman will be having all of them watched."
"You're talking like a paranoid, Shaw. There are no such things as devils. Not that the White
King can control, anyway. Not that aren't just people like you and me." He reached down and
picked up the Lament. "Not that come from fucking toys."
"But ... the faceless man. He ..."
"He doesn't even make any sense in your own story, Shaw! You saw him *before* you ever
heard of the box! What? Is he some kind of premonition?" Pierce stood, pacing in frustration.
"Or maybe you're in a waking nightmare that keeps repeating itself. Maybe you're trapped in an
endless cycle."
Instead of responding to his patronizing sarcasm, I only coughed. I was too tired to fight. He
shook his head at me.
"Wake up, Sebastian. This is the real world. If we don't get you to a doctor, you'll die."
Telling the story had taken the last of my strength. I wanted Pierce to hit me, to give me the
energy I needed to come back to life. He only looked at me sadly, a boy first realizing that his
heroic father is only a man. I had always been the leader of our little cadre; if I survived this,
Pierce might well assume the role.
"I said no hospitals." I picked up the crystal Cognac decanter and pulled the top out with my
teeth. Then I held out my injured hand, well beyond rational thought.
"What the hell are you doing, Shaw?" Asked Pierce. Then, absurdly: "You know that's a
deMontal 1874, don't you?"
"Good year," I said. I upended the bottle. Strong liquor poured over my injured hand and the
terrific explosion of pain brought a white-hot clarity with it. I could see the fine cracks on the
coffee table, the pores on Pierce's face, the fabric of the white carpet slowly being infused with
brown liquor.
I tried to say "hooch." Instead I only screamed.